350 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Concrete court (Hoppe) 
September, 1909 
Large court (Schoenthal) 
L’Art Nouveau Houses in Austria 
By Ralph de Martin 
N ARCHITECTURAL exhibition planned 
Ye and carried out in a consistent manner from 
EY he ist) the very beginning, from the erection and 
aah arrangement of the exhibition halls to the 
selection and display of the actual objects 
within the buildings, is a form of exhibit 
as yet unknown in America. ‘The archi- 
tectural exhibition in America is a medley of drawings, with 
some models of buildings and perhaps some plaster studies 
in sculpture. Many of these contain good things, many 
show the best work our best 
architects have done during 
the year preceding the ex- 
hibition; but at the most, 
these exhibitions have only 
a technical interest. It is 
the architect and artist 
who is especially interested 
in them, who _ recognize 
the good things they offer, 
who enjoy and delight in 
them. 
A new form of archi- 
tectural exhibition has come 
into vogue in Germany dur- 
ing the past few years, and 
it may be a matter of some 
interest to study one of 
these both as a model of 
what such _ exhibitions 
should be, but as affording 
an insight into the intensely 
personal work that many 
German architects are now 
doing. Much of this work 
is familiarly known by its 
French name of the “art 
” And new art it 
nouveau. 
The Vienna art exhibition, 1908. Main entrance (Hoffman) 
is, in a very new sense. It is but fair to state at the outset 
that not all of this new art is good or even interesting, and 
while I am using a German exhibition as a text for the 
present article, it is but simple candor to point out that the 
Germans themselves are often the most flagrant offenders 
against the canons of good taste in their most developed 
forms of art nouveau. 
Eccentricity in art should not, however, blind us to the 
inherent interest and value of a work of art. [he human 
mind produces nothing more precious than a work of art, 
and even the most inade- 
quate art work may have an 
inherent value and be ex- 
pressive of an idea, an art 
impetus that we may not 
always feel, but which 
nevertheless, truly exists. 
Hence, it follows that noth- 
ing is so rash than a whole- 
sale condemnation of art 
nouveau, even of the Ger- 
man type, because of cer- 
tain pronounced eccentrici- 
ties. Let us admit it has its 
eccentric form, and leave 
such products in the class 
to which they belong, 
actually as matters of no 
importance, and then turn 
to the better, saner works, 
that we may win from them 
such delight and enjoyment 
as we may. 
This much granted, let 
me hasten to add that no 
group of artists are doing 
such splendid work to-day 
as the German workers in 
